Ralph talks to historian, Christopher Shaw, about his book "Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic." And global trade expert, Lori Wallach, tells us about the pros and cons of the new NAFTA, the USMCA. Plus, former Fed Governor, Sarah Bloom Raskin, stops by again to talk about what the Fed can do to fight the climate crisis.
Christopher W. Shaw is an author, historian, and policy analyst. Formerly, he worked for Ralph at the Center for the Study of Responsive Law on the privatization of government services, health and safety regulations, and electoral reform. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Preserving the People’s Post Office, as well as Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic.
“’Banking politics’ is this political force of these workers and these farmers, this grassroots activism, striving for banking reform. So, banking politics gets this public representation on the Federal Reserve. Another major thing it achieves is the FDIC. We all take for granted that when we put our money in the bank, we’ll be able to get it back… that’s a totally revolutionary development, because it stabilizes the economy… Another major reform that they got is the farm credit system that provides affordable, predictable credit to farmers. And then the counterparts to this would be all the home lending programs.”
Historian, Christopher Shaw, on reforms of the financial system that came from grassroots activism
Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. A 25-year veteran of congressional trade battles starting with the 1990’s fight over NAFTA, she was named to the “Politico’s 50” list of thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2016 for her leadership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership debate.
“This deal (USMCA) is not the template. This is what you do when a trade agreement (NAFTA) that’s bad is in place, and it’s doing more damage every week, and you try to lessen the damage. This is not the good trade agreement. This is not the template going forward.”
Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
Sarah Bloom Raskin has been a Commissioner of Financial Regulation for the State of Maryland, who then went on to serve as a governor at the Federal Reserve from 2010 to 2014. From there, she became the first female Deputy Secretary of the United States Treasury from 2014 to 2017. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Ms. Raskin is currently a Rubinstein Fellow at Duke University.
“You’ve got other financial regulators outside the United States, including the Bank of England, The European Central Bank, looking at this notion of climate-proofing the financial sector. And yet, here in the U.S. for some reason, the Fed is not doing the same. The Fed is not looking at issues regarding whether there should be particular climate disclosures from financial firms, whether there needs to be more active management of climate risks by the financial sector.”
Sarah Bloom Raskin, former Federal Reserve governor
Making Banking Democratic/The New NAFTA